Hey, don't feel too sad.

Potential solution for the sleep issue - you can get these amazing foam earplugs! I live in a flat which has no door to the living room and the bedroom door doesn't close so it was a bit of a nightmare. Enter foam earplugs. I've had the ones from boots which are £2.50ish for 3 pairs and include a stylish (or not)case to keep them in and the £1.50 for 3 pairs pack from tesco. Both are great. You can wash them and they can be used quite a few times. Worth trying!

A

This happened to me too! Last monday. So exciting!!!

Mine had an online tracking thing. I checked it literally 10 times a day for the 3 months it took to get accepted. I'm such a loser. Is my first paper though...

Take care

A

Am a second year social science based phd.

1) I've been told to think about who I'd like to be at my Viva. I think most people would be encouraged to nominate examiners but you probably won't get the last say.

2) I have seen my first supervisor once a week in minuted meetings (30 minutes officially but tends to be 45mins-1h30 and he is a senior academic), both supervisors once a month in minuted meetings (1 hour) and am free to e-mail/ring/chase them down the hallways at any point. In my opinion, once a week can be a bit intense especially once you really get started as you either (a) don't have stuff to show each week as you're reading piles and piles of paper or (b) have far too much to do to go and tell them what you're doing!

Have you started? I wouldn't panic too much about Viva examiners (although good to think about these things) but definately find out how much time your supervisor has for meetings for you, what they expect from each meeting and if you can contact them in between meetings.

A

I completely agree! I spent about half my working week in jogging bottoms (when I'm working at home), my hair seems to have gone into grease overload and my skin is just horrendous! I never got spots when i was a teenager but now I'm in my 20s I am breaking out! Put on weight steadily with each degree.

Am trying to work on my clothes as I've always verged on the kooky side of dressing and the other day with my brother:
bro - you look colourful
me - thanks
bro - it's not a compliment
me - oh
bro - it's not a negative either
me - right

then my dad came up
dad - it's not a pantomime you know...

Nice.

A

I wish. Just bad bad timing. Applying for 2nd round of ethics, conducting focus groups, conference presentation, paper accepted and report writing all ended up this week.

To be fair, I spend most of my time otherwise being lame and usually, when I get 4 hours productive work a day that's cause for a celebratory glass of vino.

You?

I'm here. Feeling the pain. Starting working at 8.30 this morning. No real breaks unless you count weeing...

Any tips?

Armendaf, that looks like a fantastic way to structure it! Then all you have to do is make it flow. Thanks so much.

A

I think the heart of the issue here is that she is supervising you already and possibly will be in the future.

The fact that she has a boyfriend is completely irrelevant. I personally believe that sexuality isn't as straightforward as gay or straight but one big sliding scale so she could have a boyfriend but open to the idea of a relationship with a woman.

The point is though it's has the potential to make things completely traumatic in the future.

Get out before you fall in love!

what do i think?

stop flirting! yes it's fun, yes it's tempting but a relationship of any shape apart from professional and perhaps platonic friendship with someone who supervises your work in any fashion is such a bad idea when it comes to phds.

stop checking her out.

stop letting her check you out!

get the rush that comes with flirting from other students/people outside of uni!

have fun with someone when it won't damage your professional life.

Hi,

I sympathise with you. I go through phases of sleeping long hours but the sleep doesn't seem to count for much. Then I'm very unproductive.

The thing that I found helped, which is very annoying, is exercise. If I do an hour or so before bed running, or do step aerobics or cycling then my body gets tired and I get good sleep, sleep less hours and am more productive during the day. Of course there are other benefits too...I have however spent the time since I left school ignoring these benefits! Sleep is my motivation for exercise!!!

I have a trampette, mini exercise bike and some step ladders which I use because I hate people seeing me exercise. It's worth a try right?

A

thanks so much away.

unfortunately there's not really enough literature for a nice review, how happy i would be if there were.

the papers that make it through to quality reviewing, i will search their references and search the journal...

thanks!

Hello!

I was wondering if anyone can give me tips on how I can choose which journals to hand search for my literature review. I obviously know of some but I'm worried that I will miss some important ones...

Any tips gratefully received.

A

i'm internally funded too (sort of - not a research council anyway) and i'm not entitled to do some stuff like UK Grad schools for free. however, the head of our graduate school suggests that really, universities should be paying for internals to go to these kinds of things so it's worth talking about with your supervisor/grad school.

if you're single and/or "cohabiting" (ugh, had that phrase!) then to be honest, i don't understand how you couldn't get by on 13k. it's the equivalent to about jobs which are advertised at 16.5 salary (when you consider tax etc...) and the majority of my graduate friends started on that or below. some of the grad jobs in my area are advertised at 13k which means 10k take home. what a joke!

it is difficult, my stipend was rejected as income around christmas time.

my boyfriends dad is an independent financial advisor and he said our best bet was the halifax.

in the end we decided to leave it and rent until the market decided what is was doing...

good luck